AD 64 – Correspondence between Paul and Seneca

from The Final Decade Before The End by Ed. Stevens

They were not expecting to be left behind not even knowing it happened

176 and Orosius (c. 375-418, History Against the Pagans 7:7) [were the first to] clearly assert that Nero extended the persecution to the provinces.” Both of these were Christian writers, and Orosius worked with both Augustine and Jerome.

Schaff sums up the matter well when he says: “It is not unlikely that in this (as in all previous persecutions, and often afterwards) the fanatical Jews, enraged by the rapid progress of Christianity, and anxious to avert suspicion from themselves, stirred up the people against the hated Galileans, and that the heathen Romans fell with double fury on these supposed half Jews, disowned by their own strange brethren” (as both Ewald and Renan have suggested). [Schaff, Hist. of Christian Church]

In order to deflect accusations away from himself, Nero accused the Christians. The Jews in Rome (using their good relationship with Nero’s “religious” wife Poppaea, Antiq. 20.195) may have helped Nero concoct this accusation. They had both “motive” and “opportunity.” Eusebius quotes Justin Martyr as saying that the Jews throughout the Roman empire had more than once circulated such false slanders against the Christians in order to prejudice the Roman authorities against them. [Euseb. Eccl. Hist. 4.18] He quotes Melito also about such Jewish “informers.” [Euseb. Eccl. Hist. 4.26]

Another tidbit of history that supports these suspicions is the fact that the Jewish quarter of the city (region 14), which lay across the Tiber river to the southwest, escaped the damaging fires. Therefore, some Romans suspected the Jews of lighting the fires, since their quarter of the city was virtually untouched. However, since Nero’s “religious” wife was somewhat friendly toward the Jewish people, Nero may have spared their part of the city from the torch. This raises the question about whether the Jews may have known about the burning of the city in advance, or simply were spared because of their friendly relations with Nero, and their trans-Tiber location. However, since many of the Christians were Jewish, and lived in the Jewish quarter of the city, it would have been easy for the Jews to divert the suspicion against them over to the Christians.

Schaff notes that “Dion Cassius (born circa A.D. 155), in his History of Rome (preserved in fragments and in the abridgment of the monk Xiphilinus), from the arrival of Aeneas to A.D. 229, mentions the conflagration of Rome, but ignores the persecutions of the Christians.” [Philip Schaff, “Apostolic Christianity,” History of the Christian Church, Vol. 1; Accordance electronic ed. 8 vols.; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1910), n.p.]

Warmington is puzzled by the strange silence of ancient historians surrounding the persecution of the Christians by Nero. He says:

No convincing explanation of the silence of later generations about a connexion between the measures against the Christians and the fire of Rome exists. Tacitus’ work was more or less forgotten; as for the Christian tradition, it may be supposed that almost the entire Christian community at Rome was destroyed and that later arrivals and converts in the city had no reason to cherish the memory of those who had suffered, particularly as no issue of religious faith was directly involved. (Warmington, Nero: Reality and Legend 127)

Warmington is obviously not a preterist, nor even a conservative Christian, so it is no surprise that he finds it hard to explain the silence surrounding the great fire in Rome and the subsequent persecution of Christians. He is certainly not aware of the possibility that the Parousia and Rapture may have occurred, and that this may have something to do with the absence and silence of the Christians afterwards.